The coming court calendar.

The death penalty, the First Amendment and who owns shipwrecks are among the questions the Supreme Court will soon consider.

States that impose the death penalty should be closely watching a California case to be heard by the Supreme Court this spring. At issue is whether the states can limit a Death Row inmate's appeals in federal court.

For state prosecutors, as well as for a victim's family, winning a conviction and a death sentence for a brutal murderer is not the end. It is instead often just the first stage of a legal process that is likely to go on for another 10 to 15 years. Since the 1960s, when the Supreme Court broadened the use of habeas corpus, this nation has had a dual system of review for criminal appeals, one state and one federal. A convicted killer who is sentenced to die can appeal all aspects of his case in the state courts, a process that often lasts the better part of a decade. Then, once the state supreme court has rejected his final appeal, he can start over again in the federal system.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and many state prosecutors have chafed at this two-track process, calling it costly, duplicative and time consuming. Two years ago (April 1996), the Republican Congress and President Clinton agreed to change federal law and to put new limits on state criminal appeals in federal court. The changes received relatively little notice because they were tucked into the Antiterrorism Act of 1996.

Under the new law, a state inmate whose death sentence has been upheld by the state's highest court has only 180 days to file an appeal in federal court. He must include all the possible grounds for challenging his conviction and sentence. In the past, there were no deadlines, and an inmate and his lawyer could wait for years to file a federal appeal. Many did so only after a state prosecutor set a date for his execution. Prisoners were also permitted to challenge their convictions on a piecemeal basis, trying one appeal first, and if that failed, trying another.

The new law also puts deadlines on U.S. judges to decide the appeals. In the past, federal judges sometimes held cases four or five years before acting on an appeal. Now they must do so 180 days after the appeal is filed. Similar deadlines were imposed on the U.S. courts of appeals.

While the law included a bunch of carrots for the states, it also came with one stick. In order to take advantage of the new limits, the states are obliged to pay "reasonable litigation expenses of competent counsel" to prepare appeals after a murderer is given a death sentence. Everyone agreed it is better to thoroughly examine and investigate a prisoner's claims of unfairness at an early stage, rather than have the unanswered questions arise on the eve of an execution.

Of course, the phrases "reasonable expenses" and "competent counsel" are subject to different interpretations. To no one's surprise, anti-death penalty lawyers do not agree with state officials on what is required. Also to no one's surprise, a lawsuit on the issue arose in California.

Over the past two decades, California has epitomized the legal struggle over carrying out the death penalty. Since its voters restored capital punishment in 1977, jurors have sentenced more than 500 murderers to die. So far, however, only four convicts have been executed. On average, their appeals in state and federal court ran for 13 years. Governor Pete Wilson notes despairingly that Death Row inmates at San Quentin are more likely to die of natural causes than of a lethal injection.

The delays clearly are not due to the state's reluctance to carry out executions. They are a product of lengthy appeals in federal courts.

A day after President Clinton signed into law the changes in death penalty procedures, lawyers in San Francisco filed a class action lawsuit in federal court challenging the measure. They spoke on behalf of the 480 inmates on Death Row. They sought a ruling barring California from using the deadlines on the grounds that the state had not provided "competent counsel" for all the inmates.

In response, the state said it had provided extra appellate lawyers for all the inmates whose appeals had gone forward in the state system. Separately, they argued the class action suit should be thrown out under the 11th Amendment, a provision that the Supreme Court had said shields states from being hauled into federal court.

U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson sided with the inmates in May 1996. In a broad ruling, he voided the use of the new federal law in California. His decision was upheld last year on a 2-1 vote by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In December, the Supreme Court announced it would hear the state's appeal in the case of Calderon vs. Ashmus, 97-391. Since Judge Henderson's ruling, a series of similar lawsuits have been filed in other states. The case will be argued before the Court in late March, and a decision handed down by July.

If the justices overturn Henderson's order, it will not end the litigation on the matter. Instead, states will have to show on a case-by-case basis that they have provided competent counsel and reasonable expenses for the inmate's appellate lawyers.

WHO OWNS SHIPWRECKS?

Meanwhile, the Court will also rule this term on whether coastal states can claim title to historic shipwrecks that lie near their shores. A third case tests whether state-licensed public TV and radio networks are obliged to include fringe candidates in broadcast debates.

In the Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987, Congress gave the states claim to historic wrecks that lie within three miles of shore. The intent was to protect these wrecks for educational and archaeological purposes rather than allow them to be plundered by treasure hunters.

In 1993, a team of underwater explorers found the wreckage of a Gold Rush era steamer, the Brother Jonathan. On July 28, 1865, it had struck a rock and sunk off the north coast of California, taking down more than 150 passengers and crew and a reputed shipment of gold.

However, when state officials laid claim to the wreck, they were rebuffed by a federal judge in San Francisco and the U.S. Court of Appeals. Because the 19th century insurers who paid claims after the disaster had not relinquished their rights to it, the wreck was "not abandoned," the lower courts ruled.

The high court's decision in the case of California vs. Deep Sea Research, 96-1400, is likely to determine whether the coastal states can indeed claim their historic wrecks.

The public TV case, Arkansas Educational TV vs. Forbes, 96-779, tests the reach of the First Amendment in a state forum. The candidate in question is not Steve Forbes, the publishing magnate who ran for the Republican presidential nomination two years ago. He is Ralph P. Forbes, a perennial candidate from Arkansas. Though he was on the ballot as a congressional candidate in 1992, the state public TV network excluded him from a televised debate. Only the Republican and Democratic nominees were invited.

Forbes sued on free-speech grounds and won. The U.S. court of appeals in St. Louis ruled that a government-controlled station cannot exclude qualified candidates from such an important forum. The stations said they will not be able to sponsor debates if they must include an unwieldy number of participants.

STATES WITH CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

Thirty-eight states impose the death penalty.

Alabama Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas(*) Kentucky Louisiana Maryland Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire(*) New Jersey New Mexico New York(*) North Carolina Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Washington Wyoming(*)

* No sentences currently imposed

David G. Savage is the Supreme Court correspondent for the Los Angeles Times and author of Turning Right: The Making of the Rehnquist Supreme Court.